Word: mentally
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...face a growing demand for mental health services at Harvard that is linked to an increasing trend in the prevalence of serious mental illness among enrolled students. These two upward trends reflect what is happening throughout institutions of higher education in the United States. Harvard is no different in this regard. The reasons are attributed to improved medications for serious mental illness and rising expectations for what to demand from a health care system. The Harvard community should embrace both developments. Excellent students who were previously disabled by illness can now, with the help of therapy and medications, accomplish their...
...quality of mental health services provided to students has been a major focus of our attention. When the University Student Health Coordinating Board (USHCB), of which I am chair, began our work in 2000, we were aided by three relevant previous peer-reviewed reports of University Health Services (UHS). Despite substantial investments prior to this time, these reports identified key problems in student mental health services that fell into two clusters: difficulties getting into care and difficulties once in the process of treatment. In 2000, the majority of issues appeared to lie in the first cluster. We moved fast...
Over the last three years we can claim progress on several of these issues. First, outreach of all kinds and growing student activism have helped make everyone aware that mental illness is a condition that many people are forced to live with and that can almost always be effectively treated. Second, confidentiality protocols have been strengthened so that essential emergency communications can be sure to occur without the transmission of private and privileged information regarding an individual student’s health status. Third, the time to a student’s first appointment and the time...
Still, these improvements have brought with them new issues, or at least have aggravated pre-existing ones. As stigma has lessened, more students are entering the system to seek care. In 2003, UHS Mental Health had 4,871 visits by undergraduates, a 30 percent increase over the 3,401 undergraduate visits in 2001. This is a good development—but it puts more pressure on access. And the measures to improve access have meant that the clinicians are trying to be more efficient, matching student needs with their own time and expertise. This matching process is perhaps...
...Making places where students can readily find each other might help the mental health problem,” Berenika D. Zakrzewski ’05 said. “I mean, look at Loker Commons, which is in a basement—I don’t know anyone who hangs out there...